Magna Carta: David Cameron to defend Bill of Rights plan at Runnymede celebration

David Cameron will use the occasion to make a speech to defend his government’s decision to scrap legislation that incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law and substitute it with a bill of rights Getty

Celebrations to mark the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta will be held today on the marshy land besides the Thames at Runnymede where King John accepted the historic document that limited the power of the Crown on 15 June, 1215.

The Queen is due to attend a national commemoration at the site – the Runnymede Meadows in Surrey – with the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess Royal.

David Cameron will use the occasion to make a speech to defend his government’s decision to scrap legislation that incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law and substitute it with a bill of rights.

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He will say: “The good name of ‘human rights’ has sometimes become distorted and devalued. It falls to us in this generation to restore the reputation of those rights and their critical underpinning of our legal system.”